But which one?
My readers, all of you pure geniuses when it comes to goddesses, know
that Europe once upon a time was literally swimming in goddesses.
Heaveans to Murgatroyd, listing just the “A” goddesses of Europe alone would
take a month of Sundays.
Here are just the Celtic ones, numbering 19 (and I suspect I've probably missed a few -- if not many):
Here are just the Celtic ones, numbering 19 (and I suspect I've probably missed a few -- if not many):
Abnoba
Acioonna
Adnraste
Adulllata
Agrona
Aibell
Aimend
Aine
Airmed
Alaisiagae
Ancamna
Ancasta
Andarta
Annea
Arduinna
Arianrhod
Arnemetia
Aveta*
Aveta*
Artio
Then you have the Celtic goddesses B to Z. Then you have Lithuanian goddesses A-Z, Latvian goddesses A-Z, Liechtensteinian goddesses A-Z, etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, what I found out was, Mother Goose wasn’t just one European goddess.
After the fall of Rome, two goddesses merged, and it
was this merger deity who disguised herself as “Mother Goose” – in order to move safely through the
Burning Times.
Fascinating, right?
To learn more, including which two goddesses merged and became Mother Goose, pre-order a copy of Breaking the Mother Goose Code now, at Amazon.com.
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*No matter what I do, I can't get Aveta to stay in line with the rest. I even moved her up a rung, out of alphabetical order, and she still won't stay put! All hail, Aveta, She who marches to Her own drummer!
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*No matter what I do, I can't get Aveta to stay in line with the rest. I even moved her up a rung, out of alphabetical order, and she still won't stay put! All hail, Aveta, She who marches to Her own drummer!
Hi Athana, I just found your blog & applaud your work. I posted this on your April 17, 2006 blog before realizing you might never see it...so I apologize for repeating it here. I'm writing a book on the Celtic Goddess Epona. She was a sovereignty goddess & certainly "radical" in that she sometimes carried a scourge (whip). I believe this was a key to a kind of Goddess & Woman-centered 'alchemy' that raised men (& gods) from their crude animal state to higher expressions of reverence, deference, & devoted service to the Goddess. I am tracing Epona's roots (in part) to the 'Mistress of Animals' lineage going back to Crete & Sumer (Inanna), & want very much to use the image of the Minoan Goddess/Queen receiving deferential tribute from the (probably male) ape-like creature. But I can't find the source of the image in order to get permission to use it. Can you ~ would you ~ help me please? My book is intended as a contribution to the restoration of a goddess-centred culture (hopefully like that of Minoan Crete), & I've spent the last ten years researching it (not just academically!). I appreciate your time very much, & thank you in advance for helping if you can. I can be reached at firekyn@gmail.com or you can PM me on facebook (Peter Douglas).
ReplyDeleteAthans ~ just to assure you about the intention of my book on Epona, here is an excerpt you might find interesting:
ReplyDelete"...That this was historically true and not simply 'mythical', was eloquently expressed in the poems written by the Sumerian high priestess, Enheduanna, during roughly the same time period as the stories that later formed the Epic of Gilgamesh. In them, she described the “head-overturning” rituals of Inanna in some detail:
“...in sacred rite she takes the broach which pins a woman's robe/ breaks the needle silver thin/ consecrates the maiden's heart as male/ gives to her a mace/ for this one dear to her she shifts a god's curse ~ a blight reversed/ out of nothing shapes what has never been/ her sharp wit splits the door where cleverness resides/ and there reveals what lives inside...” Meanwhile “... a man who spurned her she calls by name/ makes him join woman ~ breaks his mace/ gives to him the broach which pins a woman's robe...These two she changed, renamed... ordained sacred attendants of ecstasy...”1
The wording makes the power struggle outside the temples explicit: the ritual reversed the blight of “a god's curse” ~ i.e., the usurpation of ancient female power and authority. In this context, the symbolism of the mace was highly significant. A type of ancient club, it had a large rounded head at the end of a long shaft. It was a preeminently phallic symbol that, by this time, had become an emblem of male power and dominance. But it also represented the fecundating power that originally belonged to the goddess: in the earliest creation story ever written, for instance, the Sumerian goddess Nammu had fertilized her own womb to conceive and give birth “to the great gods”.2 It must have been obvious that the masculine could only come into being from the womb of the feminine, and that she was therefore inherently both male and female.
Giving the mace to the maiden symbolically restored the inherent power and natural dominance that “lived inside” her. Conversely, making the man “join woman” was synonymous with re-discovering the feminine source of his being: “breaking his mace” symbolized an emasculating reorientation to the deeper power and authority of the goddess and her priestesses. For the Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, the “head-overturning” ritual was thus a return ~ in ecstasy ~ to the original order of nature in a goddess-centred universe."
Hi, Kyn,
ReplyDeleteThe "the image of the Minoan Goddess/Queen receiving deferential tribute from the (probably male) ape-like creature" comes from Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol, by Nanno Marinates. Good luck with your book!
Many Thanks Athana. Much appreciated.
ReplyDelete